Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World

While there was some interesting information in this book, I expected it to be a little more insightful about the commerce of Cotton. I suggest a historian would enjoy this book, but for a layperson, it may seem a bit dry.

great book for history buffs and people interested in how cotton is made and shipped around the world-photos are esp great

Long before cotton was King in the South, it was the Emperor of India, with a truly global outreach as far back as the Middle Ages.

It has a very detailed history of commodity trading and fabric weaving development.This begins with Indian Ocean trading in medieval times and expands to global trading patterns .

This is a beautiful book with excellent content and excellent illustrations and plates.

COTTON"Cotton. The fabric of ours lives", as the ad goes, is examined in great details from different aspects of its impact on cultivation, trade, industrialization and fashion. It is not simply a history of a commodity but a treatise that illustrates the original source of raw material and its transformation into cloth in India, its trade in Asia, exchange and consumption in the West, the modification and advances of European industry to accommodate demands and expansion of the global markets.The 407 pages book is divided into 13 chapters spread over three parts, including an introduction to familiarize the reader with a brief history of cotton.Part l, "a centrifugal system", is about the first cotton revolution from 1000 to 1500 AD, covers the Indian origins of cotton from planting to manufacturing to export and trade. The system was based on diffuse methods of sharing production, information and profit in the Asian subcontinent with India at its core.Part ll, covers the next 250 years, when cotton was discovered by European traders, influenced consumers and manufacturing in England, France and Europe and eventually spread to America.Between 1670 and 1760 the English East India Company imported an average of 15 million yards of Indian cotton textiles a year, which it sold to European merchants. Europeans consumers favored Indian cotton because of the quality of the weave and the fade-resistance of their bright colors. Cotton clothes were much cheaper than silks or woolens, could be washed frequently and were more affordable to the masses. These fashionable and cheap commodities threatened the local silk, linen and wool industries, which instigated a ban on cotton at the beginning of the 18th century. Women wearing cotton were attacked in the streets and frequently stripped naked. Colorful Indian textiles were "corrupting the morals of society" as depicted in the 1703 comedy "Strange Trollops in Callicoe Gowns" at the London Royal Theater.By the end of the 18th century, European manufacturers mastered the Indian weaving techniques and the use of mordants (substance that fixes dyes).Better cotton textiles were produced in Europe, and were thus freed from their xenophobic association causing the ban to be lifted.Part lll, "a centripetal system", (1750 to 2000 AD), deals with the capitalist driven cheap production of cotton by true slavery in the New World and relative slavery of cheap labor, under brutal conditions, in the mills of Europe and America eventually becoming the most significant component of the industrial revolution and the most common material in textiles.The last chapter analyzes the evolution of the systems of commerce and the shift from the divergence of cotton manufacturing from India to the West in the 19th and 20th centuries, until its convergence back to Asia within the past decades.Cotton is now a global industry worth about 425 billion dollars with production firmly based in Asian countries, where cheap labor is exploited in dismal sweatshops and unsanitary factories, as illustrated by the disaster of 2013 in Dhaka (Bangaladesh) that resulted in the deaths of over 1000 garment workers.Cotton is inferior to the new synthetic fibers in strength, durability, elasticity and absorption of colors. It is also not as "environmentally friendly" with its high water consumption, causing soil depletion and replacing food staples, such as rice, in Asia and Africa.Reillo's book is based on extensive research with almost 100 pages (297 to 392) of Notes and Bibliography. There are many tables, figures, and plates in color and black & white illustrations of fabrics and designs. It is a remarkable achievement that succeeded in combining not only the history of the cultivation, production, trade and economic impact of cotton but also its influence on the textile industry, culture, design, fashion and art; the book should be considered as a reference on these subjects. It is a fascinating read, especially for anyone interested in understanding the subject in exhaustive detail, but it is a difficult book to categorize and, therefore, to review fairly. As a reference it would easily rate as 5 stars, but for the casual reader it might be overwhelming or even boring, depending on his/her level of interest.

I'm surprised Cambridge University Press did not (apparently) subject this book to stricter editing. It's very interesting with a lot of fascinating nuggets, but it's torture to read. The sentences easily could have been improved by re-writing. It's also as if the writer had to expand and repeat to stretch the number of pages. It was also odd to see black-and-white photos, and then later the same photos are reproduced as color "plates" (apparently another page-expander). I also didn't understand a lot of the terms, and had assumed (wrongly?) that cotton plants were basically small bushes (while there are references and even pictures of cotton "trees"), but that is because I really didn't know much about cotton to start with.

- When you think cotton and America, nothing conquers more the spirit of the West and the new world as the Cowboy in blue jeans. These pants were the ones that ruled the wild west but what was more popular at the time was the bandanna. These bandannas were popular in the west and came from India.In the book Cotton: The Fabric that Made the Modern World by Giorgio Riello you will learn many interesting fun facts like the bandanna connection. You will also follow an evolution of the first globalization product that interconnected the world going back to the 1000s.The book is beautifully woven and heavy with some striking colorful illustrations that point to the varied eras of use for the natural product. This book is a fascinating read and full of useful information that can be used to in reference when address the modern interconnectiveness of the modern world.It weaves the world into one where no matter where you live; cotton plays a major part in daily living.Cotton is still king and this book connects the dots to the land of this rich colorful tapestry.

The book is very informative.I'm learning so much about the history of textiles.to put it in two words: Simply fantastic

More than enough remarkable history, and specially strong on the Indian angle.